PROVINCETOWN — The staff at the Lobster Pot sent word on Oct. 3 to the restaurant’s customers and friends: Mary Joy McNulty, “our beloved owner, leader, and inspiration,” is retiring.
On Monday, as she packed for what’s become an annual winter stay in Florida, McNulty told the Independent what has kept her working happily at the Lobster Pot into her 80s.
“It’s family,” she said. “It’s just always been our way of supporting each other. And what’s amazing is we don’t fight much. We still love to spend time together.”
As she and her partner, Susanne Schlegel, pack up the R.V. for their road trip south on the eve of this year’s Women’s Week, McNulty recalled catering an early Women’s Week dinner at Town Hall.
“There was a gala, but no kitchen,” she said, “so we did the cooking, and then there we all were, kids and everybody, rolling baking racks, stacked with enough to feed 200 women, down Commercial Street.”
Her years at the Lobster Pot have included “so many Provincetown events and parades — my life here has been very full,” she said. “It’s time for me to slow down, but that might be the hardest thing I’ll ever do.”
She retires feeling good about the next generation. “The kids are pretty much doing it,” she said, with evident pride.
Savarese makes ‘powerful women in banking’ list
Dorothy A. Savarese, chair and CEO of Cape Cod 5, has been named one of the 25 most powerful women in banking by American Banker. She’s been on the list before — in each of the eight previous years. Part of what got her that honor, according to the bank’s announcement, is her leadership in the development of women leaders within the organization.
“I didn’t want to be known as a ‘woman banker,’ ” Savarese told the Independent in an email. But, she said, embracing that role opened up “the opportunity to offer advice, often from hard lessons I’d learned, for other women growing in their careers.”
Savarese joined the bank as a commercial lender in 1993 — part-time at first because her son was a toddler. As promotions came, she got more involved in modernizing bank practices, including the launch of online services. When she became chief operating officer in 2004 and chair, president, and CEO in 2005, she was the first woman to hold those roles at the bank since it was founded in 1855.
Savarese said the honor is an occasion for the bank to affirm its commitment to diversity. “Research has proven this time and again, that companies with diverse leadership, boards, and workforces are better able to represent and therefore serve and meet the needs of their customers.” That’s why, she wrote, “I have advocated, and even fought, for diversity of all kinds.”
